How to Confidently Navigate Digital Overwhelm

In this episode of the Impostor Syndrome Files, we talk about digital overwhelm. Are you feeling digitally overwhelmed? So much of our communication these days happens virtually, which inherently feels more performative and high-pressure. If you’re already prone to impostor syndrome, you may feel even more like a fraud in these environments. But it doesn’t have to be this challenging. My guest this week is Craig Mattson, professor of communication at Calvin University, who shares his research on work culture in our digital age, which inspired his book, Digital Overwhelm: A Mid-Career Guide to Coping at Work. Here we discuss the added stresses and self-doubts that come with communicating virtually. We also explore strategies to maintain confidence, leverage our existing strengths and communicate with greater intentionality.

About My Guest

Professor Mattson taught and conducted research for 20 years at Trinity Christian College on the south side of Chicago, where he and his wife brought up four children. Now, having moved to Grand Rapids, Craig and Rhoda enjoy hiking, playing racquetball, and walking their Shih Tzu, an extremely timid creature named Chaucer. Craig writes quite nearly every day of his life and enjoys reading hard books in the company of good-humored folk.

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Connect with Craig:

Website: https://www.themodeswitch.com/

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Transcript

Kim Meninger

Welcome, Craig. It is so great to have you here today, and I'd love to start by inviting you to tell us a little bit about yourself.

Craig Mattson

I have a Shih Tzu who's an introvert, so that feels like an important fact to start with a little black Ewok of a dog. And I'm sometimes mystified as to why he doesn't His name is Chaucer, why he doesn't like walking as much as I see other dogs out there. But he's also a reminder to me of just like the various ways we experience the world. So my story, you could start with my dog. I think about Chaucer a lot. My wife and I live in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and I'm a professor at Calvin University, and I teach courses in communication and media production and strategic communication sort of stuff. And, my wife works in the healthcare industry, so I'm really delighted to be in this conversation with you and to think about some of the connections between my research and your listeners' experience and my experience of impostor syndrome.

Kim Meninger

Well, I'm thrilled to have you here, and I'm really excited to dive into the research. I know that you have written a book recently, and I'd love to talk a little bit more about what your research is in right and then, and then, just tell us a little bit more about what you see as the connection between what you're doing and impostor syndrome more broadly.

Craig Mattson

Yes, we might have to tunnel towards each other on that, but I don't think it will be too hard. So what is my research in was your first question, and I guess I pay a lot of attention to organizational communication. I started in, you know, teaching and scholarship in a field called rhetoric, which has to do with like, how we come to be persuaded of something or persuade others of things. But I through the course of researching various kinds of corporate attempts to do good in the world, and then smaller business attempts, like social enterprise attempts to do good in the world. I really became interested in organizational dynamics. And you know, like constantly in an organization, we are interacting on what seems like just a one-on-one basis, or maybe a one-on-three or something like that, but very often there's this other sort of shadowy presence in all of our conversations that is the is the organization and trying to make sure that This conversation we're having, manager to team member is also a part of that larger conversation of like, what's happening in our organization is really fascinating, but my research in the last few years has shifted. I think, as we all have to thinking about hybridity, like, what is it like to do work in partially virtual, partially in-person spaces. And so my book Digital Overwhelm really is an exploration of work culture in digital life today.

Kim Meninger

Which is so timely, obviously, and so important. And I have this conversation all the time, whether it's personally or professionally, that the inherent challenges of building connection, communicating, etc, when you are in a hybrid type of model, and I know there are a lot of people listening who do not want to go back to the office, there's a big battle over that. But I think you have to acknowledge that there are things that are harder. There are, you know, if we're not in the same space together. And so I'd love to hear a little bit about what you see as the biggest, you know, sort of what. I don't want to frame it in a negative way. But what, what does your research reveal about the nature of communication, given, given this changing structure?

Craig Mattson

I think maybe I'll start with a story. So I'm thinking about a research participant named Brittany, who I connected with. We this was my did my research in the middle of the pandemic, and I connected with her. She had just switched jobs, a very familiar experience for people during the Great Resignation, and she was dealing with a whole new company doing sort of marketing work, and she didn't really know anybody in the company, and had never met anybody in the company, and so She found herself staring into her screen trying to discern the cues and the signals from the faces and the you know, the chat in meetings. What do they really want? What are their goals? What do they care about? When are they joking and when are they being in earnest? And all of that was made quite challenging in that sort of remote work environment. I imagine that she has now, like so many of us, gone into a hybrid arrangement, like you're describing, where you're partially in person and partially at home. And that seems like, in some ways, a sweet spot, like a good development, but there are always tradeoffs. The end that those tradeoffs aren't always apparent. We're all kind of like doing this major experiment right now in work culture. And some of us are really hopeful about this, and some of us are despairing about that. But I think as far as imposter syndrome, I neglected to try to make a connection with that. But I think that digital work, or working in digital spaces, is probably a better way to put it, compels us to be performative in good and bad ways. So there's a sense in which, if you're in a, on a call, and you want it to be a good call, you really have to exert a lot of energy, vocal energy, facial energy. I think it's probably a good idea to stand up for meetings as much as you can, to just sort of try to invest your whole self in this remote meeting. But that is taxing, and that kind of performance can also aggravate your sense of “impostor-ness” because you just feel the artifice of it. You feel, am I being fake right now? How do I be genuine in this space? And you're also really super conscious of like the on stage and the back state, because you're thinking about your background and you're literally and you're thinking about what's just off camera, and you're wondering how you're coming off. And so if you, if you do have some uncertainty, like so many of us do it, it can be really challenging to, to deal with the sort of psychological and even spiritual aspects of work when you're like already dealing with a sense of your own imposter, imposter-dome, or whatever you want to call that, I think that digital makes that more intense. It can.

Kim Meninger

I agree with you, and I'm curious if you feel that this is heightened pressure from pressure that we already feel like when we're in the same physical space, or do you think it's fundamentally different? Do you think that there? Because I think that there's probably a performative aspect of all workplace communication, because we are [that's true], right? But certainly when you introduce digital tools, it sort of magnifies that, that experience, or that pressure.

Craig Mattson

That dimension of it, yeah, maybe in person, some of us, anyway, can forget about the performance stuff. I remember talking with a woman who worked in LA in the film industry, and she talked about the complexities of being a woman in an in-person, physical space. So the just proximity issues, if somebody sort of leans over your shoulder to look at a screen that you're both working on there are angles that can be uncomfortable, and there can be things that maybe your male colleagues aren't thinking about in terms of proximity, or you might have some kind of past experience that makes you uneasy about your in-person, quote-unquote performance. And so I think some people maybe can forget about it like the dudes in the office maybe sometimes can. But then there may be people who, for various aspects of their identity, it's just like impossible for them to forget that this is I'm on stage here in a certain way. So yeah, I do. And so in that sense, Kim, it's strange like the digital can be a reprieve, because you, you have, I remember talking with someone who was nonbinary, and they were talking about how remote meetings were, just it was a little bit easier to navigate some of the complexities of being who they are with colleagues who might be either respectful of their pronouns or might not be. But in any case, the remote meeting was in some ways an easier space to deal with. So it's a give-and-take thing for sure. There's, yeah, there's endless things we could talk about in that regard.

Kim Meninger

No, I think you bring up a good point, because the hybrid environment, or sort of the communication via digital tools, creates a natural boundary that maybe navigate in an actual fiscal space. At the same time that boundary may make it more challenging. Some people, because of the reasons that you're talking about, of like, I feel this added pressure to perform or to, to show up in a certain way, or even, I think, especially if you're talking about a more crowded space, like a meeting, [yeah], have to take extra steps to be visible in that kind of a space, if you're one of just a number of boxes on a screen.

Craig Mattson

Right, right, right, right.

Kim Meninger 

As opposed to being in a room with other people, where you may be able to more naturally be more visible.

Craig Mattson

So I was just thinking, just naturally be there. Yeah, I like that. I think that's a good point. And if you have a sense of impostor syndrome, the you might, at least in my experience, let me ask this of you, Kim, like, if you have a sense of like, do I belong here? Do you feel more determined to prove that you belong there, and so you, do try to stand out in all the squares in the Zoom Room? Or do you think that it's, you might be kind of happy to just be a square in on this on the screen? What do you think about that?

Kim Meninger

That’s a very good question. I tend to see more of the hiding behaviors. So I think that it does create a bit of a, an escape for people. You can kind of keep your camera off. You can, you know, play smaller if you're in that digital space. However, there are people who tend to overcompensate in the way that you're talking about, and maybe they actually work that much harder to try to prove themselves. And that might be interrupting other people or doubling down on ideas or things that are a little bit more aggressive. Honestly, I think that that is where impostor syndrome shows up differently between men and women because of the way we're socially conditioned. I think, you know, men are to not appear as weak, and so if they struggle within with insecurities and self-doubt. They may be more likely to want to plow through them, whereas women, women have a tendency to just, you know, we are taught as children to be obedient to, you know, follow the rules, and if we don't know how to play the game, we're more likely to, likely to just kind of sit on the sidelines, quiet.

Craig Mattson

Yes, that sounds right to me. And I think that that gender lens is really useful for thinking about the different ways we deal with our own insecurities. My, my book Digital Overwhelm explores six ways that people cope with the too muchness of the workplace, and I think for many people that, that sense of like overwhelm is related to their, their own sense of competence, like, can I actually do this? It might be because the job just asks too much of you, your inbox is just way too stuffed. It might be because of your formation and your upbringing that you, you're always wondering, like, am I up for this? But yeah, I mean, people deal with this sense of my smallness and the world's overwhelm in different ways. And it was, it was really interesting to see that sometimes people deal with that sense of overwhelm through we need to have a one-on-one conversation like that will give some control here, and other people might respond with a less is more, sort of approach. I talked about that in terms of signaling. And those people might say like, let me be minimalist in this space. That's the best way for me to deal with my excessive feelings, and other people really try to take control of the situation by, you know, I called it sending things, so maybe, like writing a super huge email, to quote-unquote, get everybody on the same page. And then you have the people who deal by becoming overt advocates, you know, outspoken arguers or persuaders for things I love, all of these modes, and they all have gifts that come with them. My basic recommendation was like, Don't get stuck in any one of them. Practice a certain kind of flexibility. Just I think learning what really does help you in in the workplace? Probably one or two or three of these modes are probably going to actually help you feel satisfied about your work and meet your goals, sticking to just one of them, not so much.

Kim Meninger

I think that’s a really important point, too. And one of the things that's coming up for me, as you're saying that, is there's this double-edged nature to what you're describing, which is, it's, it's a learnable skill, which I think makes people feel more encouraged, right? Like, oh, I'm not. I don't naturally gifted at this in order to be able to gift or flex my style. On the other hand, I do think if you're already. Be struggling with confidence issues around your competence. It feels like one more thing I don't know.

Craig Mattson

Yeah, I think, I think my book was not so much trying to say, here's a whole new set of skills you need to cultivate. Because I feel that aversion as well. I already feel like there are enough skills, skills I need to cultivate enough new platforms to master and new passwords to remember and, and, and new things to put under my competencies list on my resume. Oh, gosh, so yes, totally agree with that. I think in some ways what I was trying to do in my book, I said that there were, like, six ways that people cope after each chapter. I include like a half chapter, and it's like, it's called a mode switch workshop. But what I'm doing there is not so much saying, like, here's a totally new thing you should become a ninja at. Instead saying, here are things you know how to do, but let's bring them out of the realm of like, what I know how to do, but I never talk about and let's talk about them. Let's bring them into the articulate and the explicit. And in some ways, it was just like, let's recover things that you know how to do instinctively, intuitively, and let's actually make those the focus of our attention for a half chapter. And so my hope is that people come out of that feeling empowered, like, oh yeah, like, I am kind of awesome at that. I can do that intuitively. I just had sort of forgotten.

Kim Meninger

Yes, that is critical because I think that just the way our brains work. And when we find ourselves in situations where we're experiencing some self-doubt, our attention goes to what we don't know. And even things that feel obvious aren't necessarily obvious in that moment, because we're laser-focused on this is hard me or I might be doing it wrong, and so reminding people that you already have a set of skills that you use naturally in other environments is a great way to boost that confidence of we're not telling you, you have to relearn how to communicate, right? We're just we're just suggesting that you may have to repurpose some of your skills a little bit more creatively or intentionally in the environment.

Craig Mattson

I think I you could think about it as adjusting your grip on things that that you, you can hold on to. Like, sometimes, when you pick up a new tool, you're looking at the tool. You're like, how do you use this thing, and you sort of forget that your hand is holding it, and just think about holding the grip of a hammer. For instance, there are better like, everybody knows how to hang onto a hammer, but there are better and worse ways to do that. So it might be just a small adjustment of your grip on this thing that you know, you actually do have a hold of that thing. You can actually swing it, but adjust your grip a little bit, and things, things might go better. I have a question for you. Kim, so when people, when people feel this sense of inadequacy, and they experience this sort of tunnel vision, like, then they're only looking at the thing they can't do. Like, what kinds of things in your experience come up as, like, this is a thing I can't do?

Kim Meninger

Oh, that's a good question. I would say a lot of it is informed by what they're seeing other people do. So if I'm seeing, for example, let's say I'm one of them many squares, and there's someone else who's speaking very fluidly, somebody who seems very expert in the topic that, that is going to trigger a lot of people's sense of I don't know this topic well enough, or I can't deliver this message the way that they do, and so there must be something wrong with me, as opposed to, I might deliver that differently, or I'm not here to, I'm not here for the same reason that they are. And so a lot, a lot of it is sort of social comparison more than anything.

Craig Mattson

I do identify closely with that, the social dimension, the comparison dimension. I recently switched jobs, so I'm 52 I think maybe 53 somewhere in there. And so you might think of this as like a mid to late. Career job switch, and that has, that's a whole thing. It's a different thing than switching jobs when you're 24 right? So I found myself in a, you know, a new division with a new, you know, I'm working with a new team, and I did struggle with unexpected imposter syndrome because sometimes an institution, or, you know, a new organization, will have all these norms and things they take for granted. And you're like, what? What's everybody taking for granted here? I don't get it. And that quickly becomes, I also can't do it. And so, you know, I, I wouldn't describe my, you know, the 20 years previously, where I was in another college, as you know, enduring a lot of impostor syndrome, quite the opposite, but in a new place, suddenly that really kicked in, and a lot of that involved, like looking around, watching what other people are doing, wondering if I could do what they're doing and but I think on top of that, the, the technological and the digital adds another layer of, of, I don't know, a sense, a question about your own competency. So I'm thinking about students who come into a basic media production course every semester, and so many of them are like, I don't know. I'm not very good at technology. At a certain level, I know what they're talking about, but at another level, I am basically trying to, you know, help you do in this particular space what you've been doing all your life, like whether that is in a newsletter, or whether that's in a short video presentation, or whether that's in a podcast, I want to help you do in this studio what you already know how to do. But a lot of people do experience the digital as just this kind of frightening, unsettling, can I do it? Sort of thing. So it's sort of like an overlay on our, on our work culture, and in our, you know, organizational culture in general.

Kim Meninger

I agree with that, and I personally have struggled with that a lot too. And especially I have, I have two boys that are rough, roughly 10 and 15. One of them is about to turn 15, and they are so skilled, seemingly naturally in technology, and it's just a constant reminder of how far behind I am. And I think that if you let it, you can look around and see so many other people and think, Oh, I just don't have this technology skills that I need. And technology is growing and changing at such a rapid pace that we feel left behind. And so I think what you're saying too is technology is a tool, but we already know how to communicate in many ways, right? We can always do better, but I think in my mind, in managing impostor syndrome, is often about where you put your intention, and if your intention is always on what you don't know or where you don't measure up, then everything is viewed through that lens, as opposed to at least balancing the scales a bit, you can still acknowledge that there are areas that you need to learn and prioritize what makes sense. I joke a lot that, you know, for years, I kept telling myself, I'm not on Tiktok. I'm a failure, as opposed to saying, You know what, I'm making a conscious choice to use different platforms, right? There's, there's an acknowledgement that, yes, there are tools I can do more to learn and I also have communication skills. I'm not starting from scratch.

Craig Mattson

Right, right? Yeah, I think that's wisdom. And I think there's also, like, a word of grace in there as well. Like it is technologically and especially overwhelming time right now, with the rise of large language networks. We're all wondering so many things about what AI is going to do to our workspaces and our personal lives. And so I think just giving yourself grace to say, like, No, I know how to human. Like, I'm, I'm a, I'm a person. I've been a person for a while. I know how to do that. I just I have to figure out, what does it mean to human in this particular kind of world that we find ourselves in? I love Ethan Malek. He's a he's a guru who talks about AI, and I cite him a lot, but he talks about being the human in the loop. And for me, that image sort of works, that we our job, our calling, you might say, is to stay human in whatever space we find ourselves in. And so I think for your listeners like that should be a word of encouragement, like, oh yeah, I actually do. I do know how to do that. I can do that.

Kim Meninger

I think that's a great way to put it, and I think that is such a powerful reminder that the human part we've been doing for a long time, the technology may be too new, but…

Craig Mattson

I mean, honestly, I mean now that I say that, I'm like, yeah, actually, I do suck at being a human sometimes too. So there's that, but I at least, I at least know what I should be doing.

Kim Meninger

That's great. And I have a question for you, too, and just out of curiosity, because you mentioned AI, and more and more people, myself included, have been experimenting with Chat GPT and some of the other tools as ways of maybe creating more efficiency around our communication. Do you see risks of using that? I mean, does it in any way undermine authenticity or connection and like it's, it's very early to kind of predict where what is going to happen, but on the one hand, it's a great efficiency tool. On the other hand, I know that it can any, any tool that's overused can come with consequences.

Craig Mattson

Yeah, yes. I mean, of course there are risks. There are with any emergent technology. I mean, 2400 years ago, Plato was really worried about a new technology that had shown up, the pen. He was very concerned about the stylus. And so, you know, like, that's been the history of technology, and there are always affordances that come with it, and then there are challenges, and then there are losses too. With AI, I think, like something I've been thinking about lately, like you said, I don't have this figured out. So this is not going to be a complete answer, but it may be suggestive. Some people think about it as primarily a tool. And so when, for instance, when I'm writing an introduction to a podcast that's pretty formulaic, I kind of do this thing every week. AI is a valuable tool there. It creates a trellis for my script, and I can, like, quickly adapt it and adjust it and revise it into my voice. So that's more like a tool. But then sometimes, when I'm stuck, for instance, in the writing process and I can't figure out how to position this thing. I'm trying to say I'm a writer, so I'm going to tend to use like writer examples, but you could probably translate this into other fields as well, quite readily. If you're doing code, or if you're trying to do some engineering work or whatever, then AI is a little bit more like a partner. It's more like a dialog partner. And so I think we kind of shift back and forth between, it's a tool, it's a partner, and both of those have real problems. If it's a tool, I think we might be underestimating how immersive it is. It's not just like, you know, in a drawer somewhere, if it's a partner, there's this wonderful technologist, Jaron Lanier, who says that if we think of it as a person, it's easy to treat it like a God and to maybe begin to be too fearful about it, or too reverential, or too hopeful about it, any of those, we quickly begin to worship things. And so yeah, he cautions about too much treating it like this other person at the table. So I'm looking for a third way to think about it. If you've got any ideas, Kim, I am super open to that. I think sometimes it's a tool, sometimes it's more like a partner, but I think both of those have real problems.

Kim Meninger

Yeah, I think that's a really good way to frame it. And thinking about a third option is something for me to noodle on too.

Craig Mattson

Yeah, yeah let me know what you come up with. I'm thinking about a garden. I'm thinking about a shed. I'm thinking about just like, trying different sort of homey images to see if I can come up with something that might be more useful. I write this weekly work culture newsletter called the Mode Switch, and that's what I'm wrestling with for this week. Is like, what's another way to think about AI in the workplace, but anyway, we'll see.

Kim Meninger

Yeah, well, you've given us a lot to think about in terms of especially the digital aspect of communication, because we're all in different in different phases of the journey. And I think we all come to every work interaction with different comfort levels, whether it's based on the topic, based on our own personality, styles, introvert, extrovert, you know, previous experiences that influence how we see the current moment. And so I think it's important going back to what you were talking about before, of really being flexible in how we, how we show up in these different moments. One of the biggest challenges, I think, is that we are we tend to be in reactive mode. Oftentimes we're moving at such a rapid pace that we're not consciously thinking about what we're doing. We're just sort of falling into old habits or just doing whatever feels most expedient. And so I think even just consciously, I'm a big fan of pushing the pause button, especially if you feel uncomfortable, to kind of say, Okay, how do I want to approach this? As opposed to just diving right into it? And it sounds like your book gives some really good guidance on how to do that.

Craig Mattson

I hope so. Yeah. I think of the image or the I don't know if it's an image, but it's like a, it's a piece of advice you're giving implicitly in what you're saying is, like, don't just dive in. There's a funny thing about Chat GPT, by the way, or AI in general, that for some reason, if you're like crafting something like a podcast script, like I do every week, they always say, let's dive in. And I think I don't, I don't know why that seems right to the large language networks all the time to use that verb, dive in. But I think actually your advice to just, let's, let's take another look at this and ask, like, how do I want to show up in this swimming pool? Is, is probably, is probably wisdom. So I think my book, in effect, is, is helping people. It's sort of giving permission to say you don't have to dive in. You can you can slow down, you can step back, you can sit down and think about this a bit, and the, I'm hoping that the stories and the insights from the 47 Gen Z and Millennial professionals that I interviewed will afford that a chance to take a look around your life and not just be diving in.

Kim Meninger

Well, that sounds like a really great place for me to transition into a question around your book and where people can find it and where people can find more of you. You mentioned a newsletter. I don't know if that's open to the public but for people who want to continue to learn more about you and your work, what's the best way for them to do that?

Craig Mattson

Two things, thanks for asking Kim. So two things. I wish I had a more original answer. Then you can get the book Digital Overwhelm on Amazon very easily, but I have found it on other bookstores as well. So there are lots of online bookstores where you can, you can pick up Digital Overwhelm, A Mid-Career Guide for Coping at Work. But if getting another book right now feels like something, well, let me put that in my cart, but I'm not sure I'm quite ready to press the buy button yet. Thank you for putting it in your cart. I understand that the stack of books next to my chair is way too tall, and sometimes I do need to, like, just put it in the cart and then and wait. But if that's you, then I would encourage you to stop by my newsletter. You can find it at The Mode Wwitch, all one word, the mode switch dot com, and that'll give you a place to sign up for it. It is free, and it comes out on a on a bi-weekly basis. There's, there's a podcast attached to it, which involves an intergenerational team, a boomer, an X or millennial Z, talking about these sort of work culture issues as well. So yeah, I would love for people to stop by the mode switch com and sign up. Happy to have you in the in the little community there.

Kim Meninger

I love that, that I will make sure that that is in the show notes as well. And thank you so much for being here, Craig. I really appreciate your sharing your research and your work with us, and I appreciate that you're doing that research. I think it's really important.

Craig Mattson

Oh, that's great to hear. Thank you for the encouragement. Some of my favorite podcasts are just like this, where you have an expertise, and then I can say, all right, and here's the thing I've been researching, and we can try to make connections between the two. So it was good to talk about impostor syndrome and digital overwhelm. Thanks for that.